Reading AMERICAN MIDNIGHT: Democracy's Forgotten Crisis, 1917-1921 was a very sobering experience for me. It showed how the U.S., from the moment it declared war on Germany in April 1917, allowed itself to be swept up in a hysteria that would brook no dissent or criticism, however slight, of the war and of the nation's leaders.

Prior to reading this book, I had known of the widespread anti-German sentiment that led to the banning of the teaching of the German language in many school systems, the prohibition of the playing of classical music of German composers in orchestras across the country, and the renaming of frankfurters as "hot dogs" and sauerkraut as "liberty cabbage." But I did not realize the full extent of the changes the U.S. went through from being a neutral nation prior to April 6, 1917 to a country at war that became suffused with a hyper-patriotic fervor which gave the government license to brutalize and dehumanize conscientious objectors, made it permissible for people to beat or kill union leaders and organizers, tar and feather union members, and ignore people's constitutional rights to free speech and assembly.

Then, once the war was won in November 1918, the U.S. government continued to promote and encourage a repressive environment that, using the fear of the threat of Bolshevism (in the wake of the Russian Revolution and subsequent Russian Civil War), led to massive crackdowns on labor unions, the Socialist Party (which, before the war, had been gaining much national appeal; indeed many Socialists had been elected prewar to various state offices and Congress), and a spate of arrests of people deemed as "threats to the peace and security of the nation." (The country itself in 1919 endured race riots, a number of bombings thought to be caused by anarchists or Bolshevik agitators, and scores of labor strikes; for with the end of the war, came inflation, and a major economic downturn.) Many of those arrested who were found not to be American citizens were hastily deported through the frenzied efforts of the Bureau of Investigation and the Attorney General (A. Mitchell Palmer, a Quaker and presidential aspirant in 1920) and his young assistant heading the Justice Department's Radical Division whose name was J. Edgar Hoover. 

What I also found galling was President Woodrow Wilson's general indifference to the domestic scene during most of these years. Frankly, I can't think of someone given his position who was such a gross and shameless hypocrite.   Wilson presented himself to the world as an apostle for democracy, while remaining unconcerned with the plight of African Americans who, whether serving in the military during WWI or in support of the country at home, were treated with suspicion, scorned, despised, and if deemed by the white power structure in the South guilty of 'socially unacceptable behaviors' more likely to be lynched. 

Furthermore, Wilson's efforts to get the U.S. to ratify the Versailles Treaty and become a part of the League of Nations (his brainchild) were for naught. For his pains, Wilson suffered a paralytic stroke in September 1919 while on a cross-country speaking engagement to convince the public to support him. He spent the remaining 18 months of his presidency closeted in the White House, where his wife and some of his aides largely acted in his stead. 

Truly this was a shameful period in the nation's history. One that, given the precarious state the U.S. democratic system is now in, should be re-examined so that we become firmly resolved to avoid making the same grievous errors again